Cultivating Arousal

Wendy Strgar

Practicing our Pleasure Potential

Our pleasure potential begins with our capacity and curiosity to explore our arousal mechanism. Recent studies have demonstrated that working with your physical arousal response can instigate sexual desire, rather than the reverse of waiting for desire to jumpstart arousal. This is heartening news because tapping into and enlarging our capacity for arousal is no different than developing any other physical response. Our trained attention and willingness to practice ensures development.

Our arousal mechanism lives in the brain, specifically the limbic area, conveniently co-located with our olfactory center. This means that our sense of smell invigorates our emotional process, our memory store, and our sexuality. Trust your sense of smell to excite you and indulge your olfactory in whatever scents turn you on. Napoleon was notorious for requesting his wife not wash for a week when he was coming home, whereas other people are all about the freshly bathed aroma. Whatever your preference, know that our olfactory system is our primary sense when it comes to attraction. Throughout history, our sense of smell has been the leader when it comes to the art of mating. Use it to your advantage.

Although arousal originates in the limbic brain, it is decidedly a visceral experience. Our bodies are built for motion and nowhere is this more useful than in sexual exploration. Although this may seem like stating the obvious, it is surprisingly not a small percentage of people who tense up and stop moving in their sexual activity. Realize too that there is so much more than just hip thrusting. Interacting with all of your limbs, rolling your neck, and stretching into new positions can trigger arousal points that you didn’t know you had. Perhaps the biggest motivations for adding strengthening exercises to your life is because of the benefits it brings to your orgasmic potential making you feel both strong and sexy.

Another easy access point to developing the arousal mechanism is to become conscious and deliberate about breathing. Focused attention on the breath in sexuality can bring life and orgasm into focus like nothing else. These practices are foundational to ancient tantric practices. Experiment with both long, slow breaths and short, quick inhalations, and notice how your breathing affects your connection to your body, your lover, and your orgasmic possibilities. Try changing your breathing pattern and see how it transforms the experience. Making an agreement with your partner to synchronize your breathing and movement is a remarkably simple process, which can have a profound impact on lovemaking. Refocusing your breathing will not only deepen your connection, but also expand your access to orgasm.

Learning about the kinds of touch sensations and buildup that lead you to the point of no return is a worthy endeavor. That information can be invaluable in the art of lovemaking as you are able to identify that line and introduce other forms of touch, scent, or breath to extend the time you love. I have long been an advocate of waiting as long as you can to surrender into your orgasm. The longer you wait, the more power and energy is built up and the sweeter the release. Tantric techniques suggest moving up and down this arousal tunnel, coming close to your edge without going over as a spiritual practice… Quite the meditation practice.

Arousal is your body’s natural mechanism for exploring pleasure. It is a gift that we are all born with. Learn about yours and be amazed at what a close friend it is.

—Wendy Strgar, writer, teacher, and loveologist, is the founder and CEO of Good Clean Love, makers of Almost Naked 95%-organic lubricant.